Mankayane carepoint was started by a Swazi man named Pastor Sam. In this town is a large community where people are sent who have no where to go, or are cast out by their extended relatives. Pastor Sam buries people dying of AIDS on a weekly basis, and sometimes daily. There are about 15000 people living in this area, and the crime and drug rates are high. Only one child showed up today due to school exams, but normally about 100 kids show up for meals. Pastor Sam collected funds in Swaziland to build a school building which has two teachers. Once a kitchen is built he expects 200 kids to show up at this carepoint. He also believes there is a need for two more carepoints in this area to service 600 kids. We walked down a hill from the school into the village, and visited a few people who lived there. The first lady invited us to see her home and take a picture. She requested help from us so she could get her children back and have a place of her own. A lady on our team prayed with her and gave her a hug. We also took a quick visit to Pastor Sam’s church which is in the middle of a slow building process.
Next we traveled to Mpaka. This carepoint is run by a Swazi Minister and his wife who both have jobs, take care of their three kids and help run the carepoint that serves about 100 kids. The wife has a chior with the kids, and they represented her well by singing (see video). The children here had a lot of creative energy, and performed a short dance they made up for us.
Today, most of the team noticed differences between each of the carepoints. They all have unique characteristics, both wonderful and challenging. I am starting to understand the vision for the continued growth of current and future carepoints. Tomorrow after the Christmas party at a carepoint, we will have more discussion on the best way to choose a carepoint for the various team members seeking to find their connect community.
Little girl who showed up at the Mankayane carepoint after we arrived.
School building built with funds raised by Pastor Sam.
Woman in Mankayane who let us into her home to explain her living conditions, told us her story, and asked us for help. Four people on two beds in a 12x12ft shelter. There are a lot of boxes and things stored inside as well.
Pastor Sam is nationally influential and a teacher of pastors in Swaziland. He has great vision for his country and it’s children.
Today the reality of the situation has hit. We visited four carepoints and drove past several others. What struck me most today was two tings: watching the kids walk up the trails toward the carepoints where food cooking had just begun, and young girls and boys caring for their toddler and baby siblings.
The four carepoints are Thembini, Bevini, Ludlati(rural), and Mpholi(inside city).
Thembini is close to the same level of development as Balekane. Bevini has only land and a kitchen and serves about 100 kids. Ludlati is down the road only a couple miles, but only has a tree on the land. This carepoint is newly started and serves 90-100 kids two meals a day. This carepoint is in need of community connection to get development moving forward. Mpholi recently received land from a chief, but is currently run by a Go-go from her own place. There are too many kids for her place, but the plan is to get a kitchen started on the new land.
I want to write more, and plan to do so when I have more time. In summary, today’s carepoint visits revealed more about the desperate situations here in Swaziland. It hit many of the team members in the heart and guts. The great news is the large difference a developed carepoint (i.e. Balekane, Thembini) makes in children’s lives where more hope is given and received.
This is Little Guy’s sister (getting the real names is difficult because of language and the number of kids)...she became an attachment.
Whenever I tried to put her down, she would pull her feet up. It’s becoming the norm now to peel the kids off Don and drag him away from the carepoints. Here we are playing patty-cake. Photo by Ron Elmore
Might be hard to see, but here is one picture of two hands traced onto paper at the Mpholi carepoint. I have a bunch more in my notebook journal…gets a smile from each child.
This is what we call here in Swaziland a Camera Huddle. This particular huddle occured at Mpholi. Photo by Hannah Leman
Tomorrow we drive much farther to a couple carepoints with more severe conditions. I believe these carepoints serve up to 150 kids. There are other carepoints we might visit where they serve 300 kids.
Internet access is spotty, and we don’t have a post from Don today, but I have copied a post from another member of their travel group - Bob Mudd, COO of Children’s Hope Chest.
A Picture of ‘What is’ and ‘What can be’
It is Thursday afternoon in Swaziland and we have had two days with a great team taking a look at currently sponsored Carepoints in the region along with emerging locations that desperately desire to be sponsored. Before I dive in to provide existing sponsors updates, I first want to reiterate what anyone who preceeded already knows which is that the staff on the ground is top notch. We have spent the last two days with Jumbo, Kriek, Scott and the D-Team. Three words come to mind – Committed, Capable and Joyful.
We arrived in Johannesburg on Tuesday afternoon and made the drive to Swaziland, arriving around lunch on Wednesday. Our first stop was the Balekane Carepoint sponsored by Vanguard church in Colorado Springs. The progress over the past three years includes well over 100 children being fed and discipled daily, a kitchen, loads of picnic tables, clean water, an agriculture based microenterprise, a set of fruit trees, a church plant and school through 4th grade with 5th grade being added in January. It is a pleasure to see the incredible commitment and sense of urgency by our friends at Vanguard. You guys walk the walk.
Our first stop this morning was Thembeni, which is sponsored by our friends at Capo Beach Calvary Church. Again, an incredible picture of hope, commitment and progress. In addition to also feeding and discipling over 100 children each day they have a pre-school and what has to be the most impressive playground in Swaziland. I will add some photos as soon as I get a sufficient internet connection. They have a large multipurpose building, a storage depot and two smaller multi-purpose buildings. The children at both of these Carepoints have a springboard to a future with possibilities rather than despair.
It was critical that the team was able to see these progressive locations first as our next visit was to Ludlati. Ludlati is a field in a remote area serviced by roads that run through dry creeks. It was started approximately one year ago by a compassionate mother serving children from her home. It quickly outgrew her capacity and she has secured a large field that I would estimate at approximately 30 acres from the local chief. A large tree in the field is currently the only protection from the elements and marks the spot for a daily fire started in bush wood collected by the group of 4 women who assist her. There were no children in the field when we arrived but as soon as smoke from the fire became evident they walked through the thick covering of trees and bushes. In no time nearly 30 children arrived. They shared that there are a number of children 3 and below that walk up to 2 miles each day to come to the feeding. The most important element is in place, a Christ follower who wants to serve the children of her community and it is going to be another success story, I feel certain.
In all, we will visit 5 new targeted Carepoint locations and I am confident that this vision team will not rest until we are able to develop the base of support needed to have each of them sponsored. A number of these will be ‘Connect Communities’ which will provide YOU the opportunity to become a part of the solution. Be back in touch soon.
Hello from Africa. I am on the second day of the trip. This morning after breakfast we drove from Johannesburg into Swaziland (about 4.5 hour trip). Close to the border between South Africa and Swaziland, the terrain changed quickly from rolling hills to mountainous. A south African KTM member had told my wife and I, and yes, Swaziland IS a beautiful countryside. This afternoon, we visited a carepoint near the city of Manzini called BaleKane. This care point has been developed from nothing but a 20acre plot of land to a location where about 100 kids come for food and school over the past three years. Some of the children walk for 2.5 hrs to get there. Most are orphans, but the primary objective is feeding, education and Swaziland led spiritual discipleship for the children. There are about 10 Go-Go’s (Grandmother aged women) that rotate through cooking and feeding duties. And there are teachers on site for grades pre-4th. These children are relatively well nourished and are receiving love and hope at this care point. I can give more details later, but significant progress has been made to date. They plan to add a 5th grade class room in January of next year.
From the moment I stepped out of the van, the children were on us with bright faces and greetings. We spent time interacting by taking pictures and showing them the screens. Most of the time, I had a tightly packed crowd of 4-10 kids trying to get recorded and/or view the play back. At any point in time there was one or two little ones riding on my arms or legs depending on if I was standing or sitting. They were hungry for the attention and love. I was happy to give hugs to these children. The reaction was once they got a hug, they pressed in and soaked it up. In all the fun one girl was tripped to the ground. She didn’t mind when I stood her up and wiped the dirt from under her eyes, and gave her a hug. She became one of my multiple hip riders for several minutes. I didn’t want to leave, but the children had to start their walk back to their ‘homes’, and we left for dinner and a culture training meeting. Tomorrow we will visit 3 or 4 carepoints. One or two are starting from what is called a ‘green field’.
Here is a short video clip to give you an idea how fun and active the interaction was while relating with these children.
First little girl to be carried about for several minutes.
Children getting ready for silly pictures.
Picture with just a few of the kids.
When I asked this little girl her name, she stated her name followed by “...I am six years old, I am a girl” as she smiled and pointed to herself. She hung around at the end for extra holding, hugs and pictures.
I was quite impressed with this young man. His name has a click sound in it (I need more siswati training), he is nine years old, and spoke to me very well in English. Before I left, he told me “I want to be your friend”. He wanted to know when I could come back.
com·pas·sion
Pronunciation: \kəm-ˈpa-shən\
Function: noun
Etymology: Middle English, from Anglo-French or Late Latin; Anglo-French, from Late Latin compassion-, compassio, from compati to sympathize, from Latin com- + pati to bear, suffer
Compassion: sympathetic consciousness of others’ distress together with a desire to alleviate it
Today, the root words forming compassion mean a lot to me: Com - meaning with, or alongside. Pati - to suffer.
Don will soon leave his family to travel to Swaziland. Motivated by compassion. I remember the tears when my wife left with her dad to go meet our kids in Ethiopia. I stayed behind with two of our bio kids and believe me, there was some suffering. The pain of feeling so alone was intense, knowing my wife would be far from home, beyond contact, beyond my ability to provide anything that she might need. Seeing my son and daughter weep like I had never seen them weep before as I peeled my 7 year-old daughter from her mother’s neck. In my weakness, I’m not willing to go through that again… not right now anyway.
That’s why I am so humbled and feel such admiration for Don and his family. I know what they are feeling, and I also know first-hand that the joy that comes from demostrating compassion consistent with God’s plan competely overwhelms the suffering. Especially when our suffering in a short-term mission is just that: short-term.
The pain we felt was the pain of being alone - without someone we love beyond what we can express. But Jenny was with her Dad and our 10 year-old son. I was with her mother and two of our kids. Not alone at all. Not compared to the hundreds of millions of children who wake up each morning with no one to hold them. No one to cry with them, No one to comfort them, No one to tell them they love them. No one to just quietly put a hand on their shoulder and to say, “I’m in this with you”.
Today, think about the little, comforting things you would miss if your loved ones were not with you. Think about kids who long for those comforts with all their being, but will never experience them without you and me. They exist… they are very real. I remember how painful it was for me to suffer the absence of those comforts. Even though I knew Jenny’s absence was short-term, even though I had the benefit of a background of experiencing that kind of support throughout my life. I weep (I actually am right now as a matter of fact - I have an office at work so I can close my door… thank God for small blessings) to think of kids who experience the grief and pain I experienced - but without hope.
I know Don will leave with some questions, among them: “what can I bring to the situation I will see?”. Through Don, God will bring someone to cry with those kids, someone to put a hand on their shoulder, someone to tell them that we love them, and that we will not leave them. He will suffer with them, as will his family who will miss the comfort of his presence - and they will together feel the comfort of God’s joy and peace. That is my definition of compassion today.
Give me a little Dramamine (ok, more than a little), my favorite neck pillow, my trusty backpack and prayer support, and I am happy to travel. What a privilege to get to travel with Children’s Hope Chest (CHC) as the representative of the KnownToMe.net Community. Soon a team of travelers will meet in Atlanta to start our Swaziland Vision Trip. Prior to reading Red Letters: Living a Faith that Bleeds by Tom Davis a few years ago, I do not think I had ever heard much about the small, unique kingdom of Swaziland, and I was definitely unaware of the situation there. This is what Children’s Hope Chest has said about this trip: “Children’s HopeChest is leading a vision trip for pastors and community leaders to Swaziland, Africa. Our hope is to create a larger network of churches or businesses here in the US to invest into the lives of people in Swaziland. Never before has there been such a great need for the lives of children and families in Swaziland, Africa. HIV and AIDS are ravaging an entire generation leaving families devastated and children alone. Approximately 46% of Swaziland’s total population is infected with HIV.” I could share more overwhelming stats, but this is about more than numbers, it is about communities of individuals.
Trip Details:
We will fly into Johannesburg, South Africa. From Johannesburg, and drive several hours East to Mbane, Swaziland. This will be our home base as we take one and two day trips out to visit several locations. More Dramamine is in order here for bumpy road trips, I think. Our group from the US will be meeting up with a local pastor and others who live and work in Swaziland and with Children’s Hope Chest. We will see communities (also called care points) who are in need of investment, communities who are just beginning to grow and communities that are beginning to flourish. One of the communities is more of an inner city type location while the rest are more rural. One community that has yet to have much investment has a high percentage of child-led households. A child-led household in these living conditions brings pictures of fear, loneliness, hunger and desperation that is difficult to imagine if these were my children. In addition to these communities, we will also see a local farm that is established by Swazi people and outside investors to bring more hope and opportunity to the area.
Christmas is coming early to some communities in Swaziland this year! With the help of a couple working on the ground with some of the care points in Swaziland, we are going to have one or two Christmas parties for 250+ people! The group traveling on this vision trip will be carrying requested supplies in our checked luggage that are best purchased here in the US. In fact, I just received a fee waiver from Delta Airlines that allows me to bring four checked bags at 50 [lb] each to support our mission! The gifts requested by the people working on the ground in Swaziland are children’s t-shirts for ages 3-10, washcloths, soap and candy. All of these items have been ordered and are on their way to the carriers in the travel group! If you are interested in helping to provide this really big Christmas party, please let us know. Choose an email link to let us know what you would like to do:
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We purchased in bulk so even $10.00 covers a few t-sirts, plus lots of soap, washcloths and candy.
In the description of this trip by Children’s Hopechest above, the travel team is made up of pastors and community leaders. While I don’t claim to be a community leader rather a member and representative of an active community, this identifies our role in the Children’s Hopechest trip. As a representative of KTM’s community, we seek to find our connection with a community in Swaziland. CHC does not specify this for us, but exposes us to opportunities confident we will see and know where to connect by the leading of our hearts through God’s hand. KnownToMe is a community of currently 90+ members and readers. If you have logged in to this site and become a member, you are counted in this number. All of you/we/us are the members that bring KTM to life. It is exciting to see where our travels and relationships will transport us as we take action together. I look forward to finding our connect community in Swaziland, and introducing their stories and images to make them Known To Us.
There is so much I want to say and do right now, please forgive the scattered thoughts today.
First, we need your input. Our first “book club” will be Red Letters by Tom Davis. We’ll go through the book one chapter per week with live chats here at KnownToMe, starting the week of October 26th. The question is: what evening would work best for you? Let us know if you would like to participate and have specific days of the week that are good or bad. We’ll do our best to accommodate everyone’s schedules. If you can’t afford the book, contact me through this site – we’ll order you a copy. Don’t be bashful, it will be our pleasure to do that. If I can overcome objections from my wife (OK, from everyone I know…) our second book will be Pensees by Blaise Pascal. If I don’t get that done, I’ll impose my beloved Pensees on all of you through my posts. You’ll like it, trust me… you just have to think like a disturbed genius mathematician physicist engineer existentialist philosopher theologian (that’s not a description of me by the way, it’s a description of Pascal)… although a description of me may be similar on many points, other than the genius one.
We are putting the finishing touches on the Swaziland trip. Don is the member of our group who is going, and he will post details soon, so I’m not going to steal his thunder. However, the entire group going with Children’s Hope Chest on this trip has committed to take basic necessities and some other items for a future Christmas party at some of the locations they will visit. In general, the preference is to buy in Africa to support businesses there, but some things, such as T-shirts, washcloths, and soap are either hard to get there or very expensive. The total cost of the items they will take is approximately $1,500. Between our founding group and our church, we have covered the cost of the trip ($2,500) and have committed to cover the $1,500 cost of the items the group will be taking. We have the means to do this ourselves and with support from our church. However, we feel it is appropriate to put this $1,500 cost in front of this group so you can be a part of meeting the needs we will see from day one. This is not a low pressure thing – it is a NO pressure thing. If you would like to contribute in any amount - $5, $10, anything at all, please comment on this post or contact Jim directly through this site.
Finally, we will begin scattering posts from a recent Children’s Hope Chest trip to Uganda into our posts. The story is compelling, and it is likely that Don’s trip will parallel this one in many ways. The first of those posts is copied below. If you read it and can’t wait for the rest, the story is laid out at: http://lovingtheleast.blogspot.com/
THURSDAY SEPTEMBER 10, 2009
Uganda Day 2
Oh my. Where to start?? I’m in Africa! It’s Day 2 of my trip and I am happily overwhelmed. I just sat with my arm out the bus window clicking away with my camera and video camera. I just wanted to BREATHE in everything I saw…here are some of the things my eyes inhaled along the way:
The fumes from all the motorcycles and buses were overwhelming but they didn’t keep me from hanging out the window all afternoon. There were people riding on motorcycles three at a time. There were people baking bricks in the sunshine on their rooftops. I can’t tell you the number of children I passed on the road who were alone carrying water in dirty cans. There were people doing back breaking work in the sugar cane fields in the heat of the day. There were bananas EVERYWHERE…on women’s heads, in baskets on the side of the road, hanging from trees. Children everywhere waved at us while shouting “Mzungu, Mzungu! How are you , Mzungu?”. Mzungu means “lost white person”…I guess that about sums it up. There were people laying in the shade by the side of the road under Mango trees. There were mothers sitting outside their houses bent over the washboard doing laundry while their children hauled them water to use. There were older women sitting on their front porch with their sewing machines. There were mothers playing outside with their children and fanning them with leaves to cool them down.
And that was just on the way to Jinja. We went to visit a sponsored carepoint called Rapha Community School today. This particular care point has 44 sponsored children although there are 267 children there. My experience with these children today was simply UNBELIEVABLE. They hung on me…they held my hands…they told me their names over and over again. They sang for us, they quoted scripture, they told us how thankful they were for our sponsorship (even though it’s Brandi’s church that is sponsoring them – not me). But probably the most impactful moment was this young girl who has nothing by the world’s standards (one outfit, not much food, no parents) standing up in front of us and quoting the following scripture:
“Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life?” – Matthew 6:25
I wept the whole time she read that scripture. How beautiful to hear those words come out of her mouth and how thought provoking for my own heart . What are the ridiculous things that I think and worry about on a given day? Not having that cute outfit from the store? Not having things turn out the way I want them? Getting frustrated with the driver in front of me? And there stood this young girl with a huge smile on her face in the midst of poverty and the loss of her family speaking from her heart about why she shouldn’t worry when she can pray. It was powerful.
Then to top it all off I got to spend the evening with Katie Davis and her 13 girls. Oh my goodness – those girls have captured my heart. Margaret at the end of the night said “Aunt Amy…can you stay here?”. Ok. I’m hooked. She is an amazing 20 year old who lives in Uganda with 13 girls. Her story is powerful, her children are precious and I was amazed by her sweet family tonight.
I’m sorry there’s no video or pictures tonight…maybe tomorrow night. Internet connection is VERY slow here so I can’t upload anything now - bummer because I have some awesome stuff to show you! But don’t worry, they will come. Thanks for all your prayers…I am feeling them and can’t wait to see what God has in store for the rest of the week.
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Ludlati Carepoint Support Level 47 Kids Funded; 62 Kids To Go
About - KnownToMe
We have begun to ask ourselves...What would we do if our neighbor was starving right before our eyes? Would we not help? Today, their plight is not hidden from us. It is known. We believe there is a clear mandate that we must care for societies most vulnerable members, the widow, the orphan, those in extreme poverty. If you are stirred to a similar belief, if you know there is more that you must do, Known To Me will make you aware of specific needs and opportunities to help.
